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Managing Meetings
by Andrew E. Schwartz

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As a manager, meetings are an integral part of your job. Roughly, one-third of your workday is
consumed by meetings. Yet there is a method to managing the whirlwind of meetings you face
every day. With a little preparation, you can learn to make your meetings what they were truly
meant to be: beneficial.

Being Prepared Makes a Difference: You can schedule all the meetings you want to, and if
you are not prepared to take charge then you’re wasting your time. The time you invest
planning a meeting is time well spent. The sooner you take action, the sooner you can enjoy the
fruit of a productive meeting.

Focus on the following factors when planning a meeting:

Purpose. Before you schedule a meeting, determine its purpose and necessity.
Document specifically what you expect to accomplish during the meeting
(including goals and objectives). A clearly written plan allows you to focus solely
on the issues you need to address. Next, determine whether this purpose can be
more efficiently achieved by some other means, such as a phone call, a written
memo, or an informal conversation.

Size.Keep the size of the meeting as small as possible. The larger the group, the
more complicated communication becomes and the more garbled the purpose may
get. For example, with a group of two, there are two communication channels, add
a third person and six channels have been created. With each additional person, the
number of communication channels increases expedientially.

When selecting participants for the meeting, consider the following criteria:

expertise in the topics

contribution to the discussion

pre-existing personal conflicts

need for new information

Time. Select a time to meet when participants are most likely to be punctual and
attentive. The most productive time is generally early morning, after employees
have had a chance to drink their morning coffee. The least productive time is
usually right after lunch or towards the end of the day when other work remains
unfinished.

Length. Set a specific time limit on meetings, ideally a maximum of 1 ½ hours. Get
into the habit of starting the meeting on time, regardless of attendance. If you wait
for late comers, you penalize present attendees, and encourages tardiness. Adjourn
the meeting at the appointed time, even if all items on the agenda have not been
completed. You can always reconvene at some other time.

Agenda. At least one week before a meeting, develop the agenda and send it to
expected participants. The agenda must clearly indicate:

the meeting’s starting and ending time

location of the meeting

items (goals) to be covered and desired outcomes (objectives)

items listed in priority order

time planned and scheduled for each item

preparation expected of participants

the person responsible for presenting each item

People usually plan an agenda backwards, placing the most important item last and the minor
items first. However, you must plan the agenda the opposite way, by placing the most
important item on the agenda first and the least important items last. This way, if you run out of
time, you will have covered the crucial topics.

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